- “Lawyers Won 10x Fee Payoff By Avoiding Competition, Objector Claims” [Daniel Fisher, Center for Class Action Fairness on Capital One TCPA settlement]
- DMCA surprise: “Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles.” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Pete Bigelow, AutoBlog]
- Comments deadline May 19 on proposed Indian Child Welfare Act regulations; American Academy of Adoption Attorneys files comments warning they go beyond statute, will harm kids [related group, earlier and general]
- Asbestos lawsuits are “economic engine” of rural Edwardsville, Ill. [Associated Press]
- Chicago pays damages to victims of police torture, suggestively labeled “reparations” [Sandhya Somashekhar, Washington Post, thanks for quote]
- Court dismisses pro se litigant’s handwritten “God v. gays” complaint for lack of basis for federal jurisdiction, other predictable deficiencies [Volokh, Lowering the Bar and followup]
- “Starbucks not liable in police coffee-spill case, jury decides” [WRAL, earlier]
Search Results for ‘icwa’
March 18 roundup
- “The FAA Says You Can’t Post Drone Videos on YouTube” [Vice] Agency rethinking position following outcry? [Photography Is Not a Crime]
- Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) proposes bill directing Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to issue safety rules for detergent pods [Paula Bolyard, Heartland, quotes me; earlier] Bonus: Lenore Skenazy on CPSC zipper hooded sweatshirt recall;
- New Jersey high court — Gov. Christie’s appointees included — will now take over direct enforcement of court’s previous decisions (“Mount Laurel”) requiring towns to adopt low-income housing quotas [Bergen County Record, earlier]
- Bureau of Indian Affairs revises federal guidelines on Indian Child Welfare Act, and a nonprofit group of adoption attorneys says that not only were it and other stakeholder groups not consulted, but “entire sections” of the revision “completely disregard the best interest of children,” something ICWA alas encourages by its text [American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, earlier]
- Should winning class action plaintiff lawyers be able to mark up their expenses, such as photocopying, as two law professors propose? [Andrew Trask last year]
- “Attorney who appeared in more than 3,000 asbestos cases disbarred … ‘Excuse Man’ also loses license” [Chamber-backed Madison-St. Clair Record]
- If you see an online ad for $199 divorce, maybe think twice before giving them your debit card info over the phone [KTVK, Phoenix]
NAGPRA, counting by tribe, and the grave of Jim Thorpe
Bad enough for Congress to meddle in adoptions in hopes of helping out Indian tribes. But…burials? My new guest column at Jurist examines the first-of-its-kind lawsuit by which some descendants of Native American sports great Jim Thorpe are trying to use the law to require the borough of Jim Thorpe, Pa. to yield up his remains for re-interment in Oklahoma. It concludes:
In a nation where people regularly fall in love across ethnic lines, laws that assign rights differentially to some members of families based on descent or tribal affiliation are especially hard to justify under US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. … Say what you will about the Third Circuit’s reasoning, it at least postpones the day when tribal enmities extend into our very cemeteries, and even the dead cannot escape counting based on race.
Earlier on the Mauch Chunk/Jim Thorpe controversy; on NAGPRA and science, and the Kennewick Man affair, etc.
Baby Veronica case ends; New Republic spots “new anti-adoption movement”
Following an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling, the youngster has been handed over to adoptive couple Matt and Melanie Capobianco, which most likely spells an end to the legal ordeal [CNN, earlier]
Meanwhile, in yet another indication that propositions that are controversial in the rest of the country are uncontroversial in the American Bar Association, the ABA last month endorsed a resolution (PDF) calling for “full compliance” with, and in general uncritically endorsing the operation of, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978; reportedly, no dissenting voice was raised.
The New Republic, meanwhile, gives favorable ink to what it calls the “new anti-adoption movement.” While adoption poses plenty of genuine and difficult ethical and policy issues that deserve a full airing (and even the occasional train wreck at its far fringes; reactions here (PDF), here) sloganeering about “reproductive justice” and intimations of false consciousness (“subtle brainwashing”) on the part of birthmothers who choose adoptive homes for their children are likely to obscure the good that adoption can do [Balding/Yan, SSRN via @tylercowen]
Solomon wept: Baby Veronica decision followup
Despite the Supreme Court ruling, birthdad Dusten Brown says he “will not voluntarily” return Baby Veronica to adoptive couple Matt and Melanie Capobianco, and the Cherokee tribe has unfortunately given encouragement to his stance [Tulsa World, Michael Schearer, SCOTUSBlog (high court refuses to block adoption)] “Before the hearing [in Tahlequah, Okla.], Cherokee County sheriff’s officials ordered a Tulsa World reporter to leave the third floor of the courthouse, where the hearing was to be held. The Sheriff’s Office then closed the entire courthouse to reporters, yet members of the public were allowed access to the building.” [Tulsa World] Following threats of arrest and pressure from the governor of Oklahoma, Brown has now entered mediation with the Capobiancos [Tulsa World, more coverage]
Meanwhile, although defenders of the Indian Child Welfare Act have tended to applaud its elevation of tribal interests over the best interests of actual children, the Native American Rights Fund, revealing a newfound enthusiasm for the latter, has filed a suit purportedly on Veronica’s behalf arguing that her best interests are not being taken into account in the adoption. And the girl’s biological mother, Christy Maldonado, has announced plans to file a suit asking for parts of the Indian Child Welfare Act to be struck down as unconstitutional. [Associated Press/WCIV, Indian Country Today]
P.S. I do not rush to blame Mr. Brown, who, even if erring, is erring as many of the rest of us would. I do blame the Cherokee authorities, Native American Rights Fund, and others for irresponsibly egging him on as they stake out a maximalist position on behalf of a bad law.
“I’m a [Muskogee Creek] Native American woman…”
“… and I oppose the Indian Child Welfare Act…..I fought for my right to choose where my child grew up.” [Frances Danger, XOJane, earlier here, etc.]
Indian adoption, cont’d
Cato’s Caleb Brown interviews me for yesterday’s Cato Daily Podcast on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Adoptive Parents v. Baby Girl [earlier]. More on “constitutional avoidance” and Justice Thomas’s noteworthy concurrence: Will Baude, PrawfsBlawg.
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl and the Indian Child Welfare Act
Is ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, unconstitutional, bad policy, both, or neither? Does it impermissibly hand out rights in domestic relations disputes based on forbidden grounds of race and lineage? My new Reason piece on SCOTUS’s adoption heartbreaker is now out. ICWA advocates have argued that the law should be read generously as an effort to remedy a long earlier history in which Indian kids had been improperly been taken out of their homes. More on the case: SCOTUSBlog (I recommend in particular the amicus brief on behalf of family law experts Joan Heifetz Hollinger and Elizabeth Bartholet), ABA, oral argument transcript. And for a viewpoint extremely different from mine, Matthew Fletcher and Kate Fort write up the case at the Indian law blog Turtle Talk (first, second).(& SCOTUSBlog, How Appealing)
March 7 roundup
- Thank you, Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee, for getting Obama’s claim of warrantless domestic killing authority onto the media front burner — finally — through Sen. Paul’s filibuster last night. (More: Nick Gillespie, Conor Friedersdorf and background, Andrew Sullivan, Josh Blackman; Mediaite (Eric Holder sends letter, Rand Paul declares victory).
- Pending SCOTUS case of “Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl” is not the first Indian Child Welfare Act fiasco [Ann Althouse] More on ICWA [NYT Room for Debate]
- Has ABA now enlisted in the crusade against Stand Your Ground self-defense laws? [ABA Journal] Reminder #371 that the Martin-Zimmerman case is not likely to hinge on Florida’s SYG law [Jacob Sullum; Jeralyn Merritt with more detail on latest developments]
- “Transparency in Government: Finding Out How Much the Government’s Mistakes Are Costing Us” [Hans von Spakovsky, Heritage]
- “New York, to Stem Civil-Rights Suits, Is Now Reluctant to Settle” [NY Times]
- CPSC adopts sweeping CPSIA testing and certification rule [Nancy Nord] Should the CPSC be structured as a multi-member commission? [Commissioner Nord at Cato’s Regulation magazine, PDF, and “Conversations with Consumers“]
- Illinois: “Small Town to Lose Its Only Sledding Hill” [Free-Range Kids]
- “Word of the day: Mendicant” [New York Times education blog; I’m quoted in]
February 27 roundup
- Department of Transportation cracks down on distraction from cars’ onboard information and entertainment systems; Mike Masnick suspects the measure won’t work as intended, as appears to have been the case with early texting bans [Techdirt; earlier here, etc.] “Feds Push New York Toward Full Ban On Electronic Devices In Cars” [Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit; Truth About Cars]
- Oh no: Scott Greenfield says he’s ceasing to post at his exemplary criminal defense blog after five years [Simple Justice, Dave Hoffman]
- California not entitled to pursue its own foreign policy, at least when in conflict with rest of nation’s: unanimous “blockbuster” decision by en banc 9th Circuit strikes down law enabling insurance suits by Armenian victims [AP, Alford/OJ, Recorder, related, Frank/PoL]
- Playboy model’s $1.2M award against Gotham cops is a great day for the tabloids [NYDN]
- To hear a pitch for fracking-royalty suits, visit the American Association for Justice convention, or just read the New York Times [Wood, PoL]
- What the mortgage settlement did [John Cochrane, earlier]
- Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 blows up an adoption: “She’s a 2-year-old girl who got shoved in a truck and driven to Oklahoma with strangers.” [Reuters, SaveVeronica.org]